O’Keeffe eases fears over knee injury

EILEEN O’KEEFFE has eased fears over her knee injury, throwing 5kg and 7kg hammers at the Irish training camp in Matsue, according to Irish team manager, Patsy McGonagle.

The Kilkenny thrower, who finished sixth in the world championships in Osaka last year, caused a major scare when she pulled out of the Morton Memorial meeting in Santry two weeks ago.

But McGonagle said last evening it was looking very good for her participation in the Olympics.

“She has been making very good progress since then,” said McGonagle. “The fact that she has been throwing the hammer indicates that. Her coach, Dave Fagan, has joined her out here and that is another major plus.”

There was good news, too, as regards Derval O’Rourke and Alistair Cragg, both of whom were also involved in injury scares before leaving for Japan.

O’Rourke, the 2006 indoor hurdles champion suffered a groin muscle tear while training two days after the national championships.

She is also making good progress and had a light session on Tuesday. She got the all-clear from Gerard Hartmann to go back into full training and her coach, Sean Cahill, will join her in Matsue today to put the finishing touches to her Olympic preparation.

Cragg, who has Olympic standards at three distances, ran exciting 3,000m races in Paris and London but pulled out of the race in Monaco a week ago citing an Achilles problem.

“He had treatment in Germany and joined us late here,” McGonagle said. “He has been out running again and is still talking about doubling up at 1,500m and 5,000m in Beijing but that is something we will have to look at closer to the event.

“As regards Joanne Cuddihy, she is still doing some cross-training and we are keeping our fingers crossed.”

Race walker Robert Heffernan meanwhile is in tremendous form. The Corkman has been joined in Matsue by Francisco ‘Paco’ Fernandez, the Olympic silver medallist in Athens, and his Spanish physio.

He has done a lot of his training with the Spaniard in recent years as both of them are coached by the legendary Olympian, Robert Korzeniowski.

The training camp at Matsue is where they acclimatised for last year’s world championships.

“We wondered if we would get the same reception from the Japanese again and we have,” McGonagle said.

“The same hospitality, the same friendliness, and they could not be more helpful as regards transport and all that.”

The athletics programme gets underway tomorrow week with Cragg scheduled to go in the 1,500m heats and Roisin McGettigan and Fionnuala Britton in the first-round heats of the 3,000m steeplechase.

Heffernan, who was sixth in last year’s world champs, kicks off the following day in the 20km walk.